


Salute

by MissjuliaMiriam



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Pheels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 23:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissjuliaMiriam/pseuds/MissjuliaMiriam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson's life in snapshots, from six to thirty-eight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salute

**Author's Note:**

> Basically all of my Coulson headcanons/feels crammed into one fic. Enjoy.

When Phil is 6, his mother buys him his very first Captain America comic. When he reads it, he is captivated, and begs his mother for another. Within a few months, he has almost all of the comics, and a considerable amount of merchandise, including a complete set of trading cards. He spends most of that summer running around carrying a shield, refusing to answer to any name but “Cap”.

He loves Captain America, because he is kind and brave and generous and tolerant and respectful and smart and amazing. Captain America never gives up, he always fights another day, and he always takes care of his loved ones. He's much better than Phil's dad, who's never there and never has been.

The best part is that Cap is a real person, and he might still be alive somewhere. Phil never gives up on that idea, because Phil believes in heroes and no one will ever convince him otherwise.

 

When Phil is 14, his father tries to come home. His mother, being his mother, doesn't even let him into the house, and stands out on the lawn with her hands on her hips berating him for nearly a half an hour. Phil, who has never met his father, watches silently from his window, listening as his mother tells his father how much of a pointless, drunken bastard he is, and asks him how he could dare to show his face. Phil's father says that he wanted to meet his son, and Phil is suddenly very tired of listening.

He goes down onto the lawn and he says hello to his father, and then he breaks his nose. Because Phil takes care of the people that he loves, and his mom is tired of dealing with this jerk who just showed up and called himself Phil's father. He's not Phil's father. Not in any way that matters.

 

When Phil is 18, he graduates exactly in the middle of his class, with perfectly average grades and no social life to speak of, not even a negative one. He's invisible, which is just how he likes it.

Phil is smart, could have graduated a year early, and as valedictorian at that. But he decided that that wasn't what he wanted for himself. He didn't want the attention, didn't want the glory. He wanted to get out of high school and go into business, where he could be just another silent worker, making his living, supporting his mother, surviving on his own. Phil has no plans for children, or even family. He wants to live quietly, and be assured of himself. He doesn't need anyone else to tell him who he should be.

Phil knows exactly how his life is going to play out, because he can predict people, he can manipulate people. He's better than anyone else he's ever met, because no one has ever realized that he's doing it. It's like herding cats, he thinks. It's easy so long as they think that they're doing what they want, when they're actually doing what you want. And it's even easier still when they don't know that you want anything at all.

 

When Phil is 23, he becomes Agent Coulson. He's not entirely sure how SHIELD figured him out, but he thinks that maybe some where there is someone who's job it is to find the smart ones, no matter how well they've been hiding.

The agent that approaches him is named Hill, and she's a little younger than him, and she's as stoic as anyone Phil has ever met. She tells him about SHIELD and says that if he wants to take them up, all he has to do is say yes and they'll take care of everything else. She also tells him that if he says no, she'll wipe his memory of everything regarding the agency and he'll never be approached again.

Needless to say, he says yes. Because there will never be anything better for him.

 

When Coulson is 28, some goes very, very wrong. It is his first mission leading a group of junior agents, and they are compromised and captured. He spends a week watching as they are all slowly tortured to death before they are rescued, and but for himself and one other (who dies in hospital only a day later) all there is to be rescued is a number of mutilated bodies.

Coulson goes home for a time, and he sits with his mother and listens to her play her cello, and sometimes he cries. She doesn't know what he does, but she doesn't ask. She's good that way.

While he's there, he finds in his old room a box in his closet. It is packed full of Captain America merchandise, and he spends an entire day re-reading all of the comics, and shuffling the cards again and again. Everything is still in perfect condition, and that, more than anything, is what heals him. Coulson remembers Cap, and he knows that he wouldn't have given up, wouldn't have let himself fall apart like this. So Coulson takes the cards, and he takes a vintage pin, and he goes back to SHIELD.

He never takes on another team of junior agents ever again, but he never stops fighting, either.

 

When Coulson is 34, he meets Clint Barton. He had sworn that he'd never take responsibility for another junior agent ever again, but Nick Fury really doesn't care about that when he tells Coulson in no uncertain terms that no one else can deal with Barton, so he's Coulson's responsibility now. Too bad, so sad; he's got no choice.  
So Coulson takes the young Hawkeye under his wing, so to speak, and he teaches him what it means to be a part of SHIELD, and they hate each other. A lot. They work well together, and they never fail a mission, rarely even get injured. But they can't spend more than five minutes together in an unprofessional circumstance without finding themselves at each others' throats.

Then they get stuck on a stakeout, locked into a tiny hide out for upwards of twelve hours, with nothing to do but speak quietly, or in hand signals when there are others about. Clint is too much of a social creature to remain silent, and though they argue at first, eventually they run out of things to disagree about, and instead they start agreeing; that Fury is far too... furious, that Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are disgusting, but they're also the best candy ever devised, that most modern television shouldn't exist, but Survivor is far too amusing for what it is.

They become friends, and one day Clint tells Coulson in the single most matter-of-fact statement that he has ever heard (and he works with Hill and Fury, so that's saying something), that they should sleep together. Coulson, of course, sputters and says no. But then he thinks about it, and a week passes, and he says yes.

Ever since then, Clint has been something new, something different in Coulson's life that he's never known before, that he thought that he would never know. Suddenly, Coulson can maybe understand why the Captain needed Bucky. Even the strongest of men sometimes need someone by their side, be that a lover (like Clint is), or a partner beyond measure (like Bucky was).

 

When Coulson is 38, he becomes Phil again, because Coulson is too impersonal a name for someone who faked his own death to motivate you, or so says the Captain. Stark says that he's still pretty sure that his first name is Agent, but it's good to have him back anyways, Barton was getting unbearable. The relief in his eyes gives him away, though.

Banner doesn't know him, but he seems pretty pleased to see that there was one less casualty, and Thor slaps him on the back far too hard to be comfortable against his injuries. Natasha is silent, but she smiles at him. Which is honestly a little disturbing, because Natasha never smiles.

Clint doesn't say anything. Clint doesn't even look him in the eye, he just put a hand over his mouth and slips from the room with a speed that makes Phil think that Clint is going to be sick. None of the other Avengers missed that, and so they pretended not to notice when Phil nearly ran after him.

Phil finds Clint in the nearest washroom, throwing up. He kneels beside the shorter man and runs gentle hands down his back until the heaving stops, and then he holds Clint close while he cries. Clint tells him that he's sorry, and that he loves him, and that he wasn't sure how he was going to go on. That Phil just coming back feels like a lie.

Phil tells him that it's not a lie, and that if it ever happens again Clint will know, even if no one else on the planet does. Phil's never going to hurt Clint like this ever again, not if he can help it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are welcome as always!


End file.
